In my review of it, I didn't find it to be 'junk' but for basic DV it wasn't too pleasing. However, the MPEG stream output from this camera in HD mode is pretty good. But to use properly in Vegas, you need the Cineform tool to capture and act as an intermediary codec. And it works just fine. I was pretty impressed with it at that level. Lotsa color correction needed though, I found the camera a little red-hot in my evaluation, even on the MPEG side of things.
But considering it's a first gen HDV cam......NAB is going to be interesting, based on what buzz is out there for HDV.

In the hands of someone who knows a lot about cameras and lighting you can get pretty impressive video out of it from what I've seen. In the hands of the users it's targeted at I imagine there's some pretty aweful video being taken, but at least they'll have more pixels to show it off with.

oooohhh farss you are naughty <wink> . . "but at least they'll have more pixels to show it off with. " - Ouch!! ! !



Grazie

Latest buzz I heard was Sony, Sharp, Cannon, and JVC were comming out with HDV models and JVC with 3ccds. The problem with Cineform is it will not convert files from the JVC deck that were recorded from HD tuners. It will capture them however and if you change the m2t file ending it will drop in on the Vegas timeline without the sound. If you capture from the JVC deck tuner (Not HD) it will capture and convert the file but the conversion is a bunch of lines and garbage but the sound track is ok. The Cineform conversion must be of a certain Mpeg stream or it doesn't work. Exporting the m2t file back to tape does work with Cineform even though it does not convert the file to avi.

JJK

blech!

the image was terribly "crawly." and i mean terribly. it wasn't just a high-gain problem, either. even outside in the full light of day the image crawled. the hd footage actually looked worse than when shooting in normal dv mode. you don't even need a large playback monitor to notice this ugliness.

the chip also flared out and overexosed easily. this type of stuff i don't mind that much because it can usually be compensated by skillful videography or controlled lighting conditions. but the "crawlieness" of the hd footage was certainly not controllable. it may actually be that the camera has to apply significant amounts of compression to fit the mpeg-2 on that little dv tape. perhaps? i don't know for sure. just a guess.

granted, this was the gr-hd1 (which only shoots at 15fps in hd mode, btw). but my experience doesn' t leave me much hope for the gr-hd10, which is the more expensive cousin. i mean, the canon gl2, for example, shoots footage that looks just as good as the xl1s.

--nate